Looking into this little screen, a little plastic box, opens the door to the entire world! Isn't that just wild! Who knows what will happen next. I sure don't and I am skeptical of anyone who says they do, so it wouldn't matter if they did because I probably wouldn't listen.
This isn't about being right or being clever, it is about having a voice! I have just started and I don't know what this will turn into or if I will have the time and discipline to keep it alive. Time will tell!

Friday, January 11, 2013

Can guns really protect you from harm?

The desire
to defend yourself and your loved ones is a strong and healthy drive but like
most of our survival instincts they have a tendency to become more emotional
than rational. The notion that a
stranger enters our home, our school or our shopping center and injures or
kills our families strikes real fear into our hearts making us feel as though
we are not really safe anywhere.I can
identify with anyone’s urge to protect themself with all possible force in a
situation like that.But is the best
solution that we all carry around firearms? If our intentions are to do
everything we can to prevent our loved ones or ourselves from getting hurt or
killed the answer is clearly no.

If we look
at the source of violence that occurs in our society we can see that a
significant portion of this violence is between criminals.So the best thing we could do to protect
ourselves is to not become a criminal and try not to associate with
criminals.

That being
said bad guys do enter people’s homes and threaten, injure and/or kill them.Wouldn’t my chances of survival or of
protecting my family increase greatly if I had a gun?To answer that question we need to think
through the likely scenarios.Generally
these attackers do not give warning.So in
order to protect myself I would need to have my weapon easily accessible, never
more than arms reach away and always loaded.I would also need to be very skilled with my weapon and trained to keep
a level head in highly stressful situations so I don’t accidently shoot the guy
from FedEx or the neighbor kid. If in order to avoid accidents I kept my weapon
locked up in a gun safe I would probably not have time to get it out and
protect myself in the event of a real attack.

Most people
who are not themselves criminals and who are victims of violence are not
attacked by strangers.The vast majority
of us who are or have ever been victims of violence were attacked by people we
know, more often than not by someone in our own family.The most likely threat of violence for
children comes from their fathers and mothers not from strangers carrying guns
into the schools. The chances that a child will be beaten, sexually abused or
even killed by a family member are much higher than by a total stranger. The risk for women of being beaten, raped or
killed by someone close to them are significantly higher than the risk of
becoming the victim of a total stranger. Sometimes moms, dads, husbands, wives
and lovers flip out and when they do I hope for everyone’s sake that they don’t
have an assault rifle in the closet.I
do not believe any of us want to have a pistol in our bathrobe just in case our
spouse might want to kill us.

If you are
not a criminal and you don’t abuse your wife and children then why not have a
gun at home just in case? I could
suggest about 16,000 reasons.That is
the approximate number of accidental shootings in the USA every year.If you are not shot by someone close to you
on purpose you are still at greater risk of being shot by accident than of
being shot by a stranger.

I am not
against guns. I enjoy hunting.I even
understand if some people enjoy recreational shooting.I am against guns as a form of protection. I
am against people carrying guns on their hips at the grocery store or sleeping
with a gun on their nightstands.I am
also against civilians owning assault rifles with clips holding 30 rounds.